Not what I had in mind
by Morana of Lake by Downs
Summary: Quinn goes to a karaoke bar and sings while she muses about the fallout of her latest affair with her teacher. Post Thanksgiving episode, pre Naked (unaired).


**Hi guys! This is a Quinn centered fic and happens sometime after the holidays…Hope you enjoy! **

Quinn took the mic and heard the melancholic opening of her chosen song. On cue, she opened her mouth and her soft voice started pouring out Blue Jeans for the entire bar to hear. _Bunch of drunkards, _she thought.

"You fit me better than my favorite sweater…" So Lana del Rey was a guilty pleasure of hers. Well, not all of it. Just Blue Jeans, really. "That love is mean, and love hurts". _This part is completely true._

Truth was, she identified with the song. _As any girl my age would. It's like listening to Adele after being cheated on. _Except that she was the one who _usually_ did the cheating, but not this time. _Maybe I should've gone with Adele._

She couldn't say to herself that she was actually cheated on. After all, she was well aware that her teacher was married, so she always knew she wasn't the only one. But she actually believed that he had taken an interest on her _for her. _

She actually believed that he was in a hopeless marriage and that she had intrigued him. Mesmerized him. Earned his admiration. She was used to it, after all. She had been widely admired during her High School years.

But that wasn't actually the case. His marriage wasn't exactly a wreck. Well, if he was cheating, it was, but he didn't seem to acknowledge it. And she was sure that his wife didn't realize it either, what with them going to Hawaii for the holidays. Nope, Quinn had found out that she wasn't the first student he'd had an affair with. She suspected she might be the fifth, actually.

She'd never felt so much of a fool. She'd never been this tricked before. It dawned on her that she only represented a character to him. The young, naïve, pretty freshman. Whether her name had been Quinn, or Lucy, or Anna, or whatever, it wouldn't have mattered to him. She was just playing a part, after all.

"Baby can you see through the tears?"

She meant to be an actress, didn't she? She ought to get used to feeling fake.

She bet he quoted Simone de Beauvoir to all of them.

She suddenly felt so childish and cursed her inexperience. She long ago recognized her High School experiences as messy and immature, but…they had never felt fake. Emotions had run extremely high, like the hormonal rollercoaster that all of them were. But this, this made her feel sick. And dirty. And used.

"I stayed up waiting, anticipating and pacing"

She suddenly felt nauseous and not up to finishing the song in the least. She just felt like quietly leaving her microphone on top of the stage, walking quietly out to her dorm and crawling under her covers.

However, a quick look around told her that the crowd had been listening to her. She actually saw a few guys waking up to hear her. That little incentive actually made her remember why she had decided to sing tonight in the first place.

_To push the emotion out, like Rachel always said. _

She was all alone in New Haven. She had to at least count on her ability to not give up.

"But when you walked out the door, a piece of me died

I told you I wanted more – but that not what I had in mind"

She went away to college willing to experience new things. She'd had a baby. She'd had to use a wheelchair for months and learn how to walk again. She was freakishly strong, so she thought that she would go to college, see a bit more of the world, learn a lot, got to parties, walk amongst great minded people. Hell, maybe even smoke a little pot.

She didn't expect her first lesson to be learnt the hard way, though.

"You just need to remember…"

She should have learned by now not to get ahead of herself. She couldn't deny she was a confident woman who sometimes acted thoughtlessly simply because she was sure she could get away with it.

Turns out that she never can and that's a lesson she ought to have learned by now.

She finished her song under heavy applause. She couldn't say it surprised her, because she wasn't a national champ for nothing, after all. She smiled, inwardly proud of herself, but her smile soon faded. _Maybe this is the cocky attitude that always gets me into trouble._

She went home quietly as intended, got inside her dorm, changed out of her clothes and into a comfy bear stamped pajama. But instead of crawling under the covers, she sat on her bed, sleep suddenly leaving her. Her mind was a huge blank. She was exhausted. Yet she couldn't make herself lie down and rest. She needed something. Some kind of resolution or realization to go to bed with. Some lesson learned to comfort her.

Nothing came to her, so she slowly searched around her room with her eyes. She finally laid them on the train ticket she'd been holding for months.

_Rachel._

She was going to New York.


End file.
